Alone and Lonely
by JYBs Princess
Summary: Aisha’s coming back to Angel Grove for a visit, and Rocky reflects on how lonely he’s been without her around. Part 1 of 2


Alone and Lonely

Setting: After Good as Gold but before T:APRM

Chapter One

I dragged my feet down aisle seven of the Angel Grove supermarket. My good friend Adam was leading the way and pushing a shopping cart full of various food items. He stopped in front of the shelves with chips and pretzels and things like that, and I just crossed my arms and dazed off into space. The food store was the last place I wanted to be at the moment. I almost killed Adam when he told me he had promised his girlfriend Tanya that 'we' would go food shopping for her. Okay, so there was food involved, and I love food, but me and shopping - even for food - don't make a great combination. But I didn't want to let my friends down, and it was for a good reason. Aisha, one of our other good friends, was coming back from Africa to visit Angel Grove for a few days and the rest of us Power Rangers were throwing her a party.

I looked over at Adam, who was holding giant bags of two different flavors of popcorn in his hand. From the expression on his face, he made it seem as if picking out a popcorn flavor was the hardest and most important decision he'd ever made before in his life. It was like deja vu. He had used the same look when he was deciding between white or purple grapes for fruit salad, hard or soft rolls for sandwiches, paper or plastic cups (he chose plastic, which then led to clear or colored), and light yellow or golden yellow plates.

I reminded myself that things could have been much worse. I could have been stuck with Kat and Tommy, vacuuming and mopping floors and dusting at Kat's house, where we were having the party. Or I could have been at the mall with Tanya shopping for a gift for Aisha.

But compared to the hell Adam was putting me through at the supermarket, cleaning didn't sound half bad. And it made the mall seem like a paradise island.

"Just get both, Adam," I told him impatiently.

"But Aisha's the only one who likes white cheddar," Adam replied. "Nobody else eats it. I don't know which kind to get."

Wow. The fact that things like that were what had been agonizing Adam's brain during this shopping trip was mind-boggling.

I sighed. All my life, people had always said that out of me, Adam, and Aisha, Adam was the wisest. Right now, though, I was beginning to question whether he had any common sense at all. Annoyed, I grabbed the buttered popcorn from his hand and a smaller bag of white cheddar popcorn from the shelf and threw them in the cart. Then I took the large bag of white cheddar popcorn and put it back on the shelf. "There. Problem solved," I announced. I nudged Adam out of the way and took over the job of pushing the wagon.

Okay, so I was being rude. To Adam, of all people. My best friend, one of the most soft-spoken teens in Angel Grove. It's close to impossible to get frustrated with Adam. But today, he was driving me up a wall.

And besides the food shopping disaster that I was trying to live through, I had a thousand other thoughts about Aisha's return swarming around in my head.

"What put you in such a cranky mood?" Adam asked as he caught up with me. He dropped bags of pretzels and potato chips in the shopping cart.

"A bunch of different things," I answered as I tried to keep my cool. I was really ready to explode, but I told myself to hold it back for one obvious reason. Adam was my best friend and didn't deserve me yelling at him over popcorn and plastic dishware.

Not to mention we were in a public place.

"You know, you've been kind of grouchy ever since Aisha wrote us and told us she was coming to visit," Adam noted. "What's going on?"

I pushed the wagon out of the aisle and turned down the next one. "Don't worry about it. I'm fine. Look, you told Tanya and Kat we'd be back at Kat's house by four, and it's already three-forty. We have to hurry. And it would be helpful if one of us speeds up the decision-making process a little bit."

Adam blushed. "Sorry. I just want Aisha's party to be special. Unlike you, the announcement that she was coming for a visit made me _happy_."

I froze. I hated when Adam managed to tell me off.

Adam took control of the shopping wagon again. He pushed it up the aisle and continued, "Rocky, our best friend is coming back from Africa. Why aren't you more enthusiastic?"

"I don't _always_ have to be in a good mood, do I?" I knew I had a reputation as being a talkative guy who liked to joke around a lot, but I would have thought that at least Adam would understand that I'm capable of being serious at times.

"No, and I never said you had to be!" Adam shot back defensively. "But when we're getting ready to see our best friend whom we haven't seen for over a year, I _do_ expect you to be in a good mood. Come on, man. Jason's more excited, and he knew Aisha for twelve days. You've known her for twelve years, and you're not even the least bit happy. What gives?"

Adam stopped in front of the shelves of soda. Before the 'look' developed on his face, I reached for two two-liter bottles of Pepsi and added them to the cart. "I just need to talk about some things with her, and I'm trying to figure out the right way to say it," I said in response to Adam's last question. "And I'm worried about how she'll react."

"We need to get ginger ale for Kat and water for Tanya, too," Adam told me. He got right back to the topic of our conversation. "What things?" He paused, and his mouth dropped open. "You're not secretly in love with her and planning on telling her when she comes back, are you?"

"What?" I was baffled by Adam's suggestion. "No, of course not. It's nothing like that." I placed a bottle of ginger ale and a gallon of water in the cart.

Adam looked like he wanted to ask more questions, but he glanced at his watch and said, "We have to go. It's ten to four. If we forgot anything, you can come back later." He hurried to the checkout counters with the wagon.

"Yeah, if we forgot anything, I'll just come back," I repeated as I followed Adam. I stopped to think about what I had just said. How did _Adam_ manage to tell me off and trick me within the same afternoon?

Maybe he still was the one with all the wisdom.

---------------------------------

Later that night, I was sitting in my living room flipping through the TV channels. Not one good show was on, but I didn't care. I was mostly thinking about the conversation Adam and I had had at the food store. (Luckily, when we got back to Kat's house the girls went through the stuff we bought and assured us we hadn't forgotten anything, so I didn't have to worry about returning to the supermarket.)

Adam had been right. Everyone else was excited about Aisha's visit, and I was acting like Mondo was the one who was visiting.

But come on. My best friend chose a group of sick animals over me, and I'm supposed to be happy about it? I don't think so. Especially not when I've been left out and have been feeling really lonely this year.

Think about it. I'm the only Ranger without someone else. Adam has Tanya, Tommy has Kat, Jason has Emily. For crying out loud, even Billy has someone. Granted, she's an alien on a distant planet, but Billy's happy with her, and at least he's not lonely like I am.

Don't get me wrong. What I had told Adam in the food store was true. I wasn't in love with Aisha. I've never had any romantic feelings for her before. But without Aisha around, there's no one that I can really connect to. Things weren't so bad before Adam started dating Tanya, but now they spend a lot of time together, and Adam and I hardly ever hang out anymore unless we're with the rest of the Rangers. And I've tried going out with other girls, too. It helps, but I don't need a girlfriend.

I need Aisha. She's the only one who could fill my loneliness. She's the only one who would have helped me adjust to new colors and new powers, she would have encouraged me when I was feeling replaced by Jason. And she wasn't there. She left me during some of the hardest, most confusing times I've ever had. She missed all of the good times, too, like all of our baseball games, all of the parties and luaus that Ernie held, Tommy finally gathering enough courage to ask Kat out.

I was really pissed off that she had opted to stay in Africa. So it was "her calling" to help the village cure some kind of plague. Big deal. The rest of us had all been called to different places, too, and we all came back.

But that's not the only thing. I haven't just been mad at her since she's been away.

I've been scared to death about her. Since she's been gone, she's written only two letters to us (actually, one was addressed to Tanya, so that shouldn't count). I was really worried about her, especially before Tanya got her letter. Aisha never wrote to us to tell us how she was or to ask how we were, she never kept in touch at all. I was so scared that something had happened to her. And then I would get even more mad at the way she scared me and worried me.

I was planning on confronting Aisha about the whole thing during her visit, about how she left me all alone, how I was scared for her. But I was trying to figure out how I would let her know I was so mad and remain calm at the same time. Aisha was a bit different than Adam, and although she didn't deserve it either, it wasn't impossible to blow up at her.

I finally turned the television off. I had gone through all the channels five times and still hadn't found anything worth watching. My stomach growled, and I wondered what my mother was cooking for dinner.

She stepped into the living room just then. "Rocky, will you do me a favor?"

I shrugged. "Sure."

"We're all out of taco sauce. Can you go to the food store and pick some up for me?" My mother held out a ten dollar bill to me.

I just stared at her.

So much for not worrying about having to go back….

A/N: This is the first PR story I've written for almost a year and a half. Although comments and criticism are welcome, I do have one request: if you're going to review and only say "update soon" or something to that effect, please don't bother.


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